


The Haunting Of Emeritus Manor

by casstayinmyass



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Birthday Cake, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Haunted Houses, M/M, Murder Mystery, Revenge, Supernatural Elements, ghost story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27253078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/casstayinmyass/pseuds/casstayinmyass
Summary: The patriarch of the Emeritus Family returns from beyond the grave to seek revenge on those who turned on him.
Relationships: Cardinal Copia/Papa Emeritus III (very mild)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Scary Stories To Tell In The Abbey





	The Haunting Of Emeritus Manor

**Author's Note:**

> Good evening, fellow Siblings. Gather a little closer as we tell this tale. Best not to sit on any graves... you might get a zombified fist up the... well, you get the idea.
> 
> Today I give you a frightening fable of our dearly departed Grandpapa. Whether he gave you candies or frightened you with his wheeze, he will be remembered by the church for all eternity. Perhaps now, he will not be remembered quite so fondly...
> 
> Enjoy this ghostly tale of a good old fashioned haunted house, and ghosts who never forget!

The patriarch of the Emeritus family died on April 30th, which also happened to be his birthday. It was ironic to Nihil Emeritus' three surviving sons that he died on a day meant to remember him.

He wasn't a terrible father, but he wasn't a great one. He acted like he never wanted sons in the first place; simply servants, to take after him, support him and stay out of his way as he tried to rise to the papacy of the church he worked for. Through the church, he met his wife, and the mother of the three boys: Sister Elizabeth Imperator. She had left him when he had an affair, leaving him in an embittered state for the few remaining years of his miserable life. Once Imperator had moved on and Nihil had died, the three sons, then adults, had gone their separate ways to pursue careers outside of the church...

This year, they were brought together by a letter sent to all of them, including the family butler whom Nihil had mistreated perhaps worst of all. Each of the brothers and the butler himself arrived on the sprawling property, a large manor with endless grounds.

Everything had grown over in the thirty or so years they had been gone. Weeds, ivy, and moss covered the gardens and the house itself.

Primo Emeritus, the eldest, opened the door of his white vintage Chevy. Secondo Emeritus, middle brother, stepped out of his black BMW SUV, and Terzo Emeritus, youngest, got out of his purple convertible Cadillac. A battered up VW Bug approached the tail end, and from it exited Angelo Copia, the former butler for the Emeritus'. They all approached the house at once.

Once inside, the brothers congregated in the living room, the dusty old space with portraits all the way to the ceiling. Above the fireplace, there was a portrait of each of the brothers as they were as young bachelors, each of their likenesses captured at just 18 years of age. In the middle of them, Nihil's portrait loomed. He had been painted in his youth as well, with shoulder length black hair and a handsome face. It was to be noted that the portrait now strangely resembled him in his later years with stringy white hair, when his health had been ailing...

After removing his coat, Copia came over to get the fire going. "You don't have to do that," Primo assured him, pointing a frail finger toward the hearth. "You no longer work for us, mio amico." Copia looked up to him.

"Ah, per favore. It is no trouble. I find I am used to it." Primo chuckled, nodding. Terzo stared at the former butler curiously. He had certainly aged since he worked here as a young man for his family. They were close in age, and it was no secret Terzo spent most of his youth chasing the young help to grab him by the coattail and pin him down outside in the meadows for a stolen kiss or two. It had been so long, he was sure Copia wouldn’t remember.

"Come sit," Terzo offered. "You are an honorary part of our family too." Copia wrung his hands and stared for a moment at the portrait of Nihil.

"I think I'll fix tea."

"If you must. Spirit, for me," Terzo requested.

"And me," Secondo added.

Primo glanced back. "Tea is fine." The nervous man hurried toward the kitchen. Wind howled outside the manor, rattling the shutters in a ghostly sort of noise. Terzo laughed.

"Well. It has been years since I have seen you, fratellos. Why the long faces?!"

"This house does not exactly bring back the fondest memories," Secondo spoke stoically, eyes roaming the halls in question. Primo simply nodded absently. Terzo waved a hand, checking the cigar box. Empty, save for a spider. He removed his hand quickly, shaking it in disgust.

"Eh, water under the bridge." Copia promptly returned with the drinks, passing them out accordingly. Terzo continued to speak. "I'm not quite certain who sent the letters inviting us here, but now that we are here, let us use this opportunity to drink to the old bastard. May he continue to rot, wherever he is!" Terzo lifted his glass, and downed it as the brothers watched. After a moment, Secondo sighed, and did the same. Primo took a reserved sip of his tea.

"On the topic of why we are here," the eldest began, "...Does it happen to strike any of you as odd, how they proclaimed our Father had died?"

"Odd?" Secondo muttered. "The only thing odd about it was how long the merda held on."

"But the method," Primo pressed. "I am not saying I feel remorse for him. But they say he died of a heart attack. The doctors always prophesized that he would die from his respiratory condition."

"What are you saying then, Primo?" Terzo scoffed. "That one of us killed the old goat?" Primo stayed silent, but glances were cast around the three. Secondo spoke up.

"If it were so, I would thank whoever did it." He finished off his drink, setting down the glass with a hard knock.

"What does it matter how he died, truly or not?" Terzo huffed. "Look at us. I am a singer, known to the world, si? You are a successful businessman, Secondo. Primo, an award winning author of books on botany! We are everything a father should be proud of. Instead, he would have been jealous. We were glad to be rid of him, however the means. Neither of you can disagree with this."

Secondo and Primo exchanged looks. They couldn't, in fact, admit that Terzo was wrong, because he wasn't. Their father had been a cold man— warm only toward his wife, whom he had lost in the end anyway. He had called for her by her title of Sister nightly in fits of madness, and had grown worse each day toward his sons and his butler.

Copia listened from the entrance to the kitchen, and headed back inside. Looking around in the room, he found something he hadn't seen before tonight— birthday candles covered in dust, left behind from the birthday Nihil was supposed to have before he died. The cake was beside it, or what was left of it. Dusty, rotted out crumbs remained from the passing of thirty three years, covered in cockroaches still and some dead maggots inside. Copia made a face. Nihil never did get to enjoy that cake.

He went out the back door of the kitchen area for a contemplative walk around the old grounds. Despite the brothers' invitation to sit and chat, he found he couldn't sit and partake in conversation about Nihil Emeritus without his secret coming to light-- he was a bad liar, which is why he had to quit all those years ago.

Still, he couldn't say it wasn't satisfying leaking the poison gas into the old man's oxygen tank to cause his heart failure. Nihil had been nothing but cruel to Copia for years, treating him like the dirt under his shoes. Never worthy, never enough. And Copia had seen how Nihil treated his sons. Sure, the youngest was a bit spoiled, the middle son a bit apathetic and the eldest a bit antisocial, but that didn't make them deserving of their treatment. A loving, nurturing father Nihil wasn't, and Copia still believed he rid the world of a scourge. Still, as every non-psychopathic murderer did, Copia got dreams sometimes. He dreamt of Nihil's gnarled fingers, littered with age spots and sagging layers of wrinkled, dead skin, curling around his neck in the middle of the night. He could smell putrid rot, hear the wheeze of an oxygen tank. The same phrase was repeated in every dream of the dessert he never got a chance to eat on the day of his death: _"Seestor, where is my cake?"_

Copia shivered at the thought of the recurring nightmare, and tucked his hands back in his pockets. He thankfully had his pet rats to distract him, and a job as a library assistant during the days and evenings now to keep him busy. He was certainly respected a lot more there.

Copia came up on a graveyard— the final resting place of all the Emeritus'. Nihil was the latest addition. If old practices carried, the sons would be buried there one day, too... if they didn't decide to spit in the face of their family's tradition out of sheer spite.

Fog had begun to roll in, visible now in the light of the dying afternoon sun. Copia stopped near a tree, looking out over the headstones.

_"Seestor... where is my cake, Seestor?"_

Copia frowned, shook his head. His mind was playing tricks again. He took a step into the graveyard, and walked toward the inverted crucifix he knew to be Nihil's. He took a seat on the mossy plot in front of the headstone.

"Just you and me, old Papa," Copia muttered. "You've haunted my dreams long enough. You were a bitter old sinner in life, and now you terrorize me in death. No wonder your sons hated you so." Wind howled around him. Branches swayed. Fog curled up in small tornados around him, as a crow made its presence known.

_"I want my cake, Seestor. Where is my cake?"_

Copia scowled at the headstone.

"I am glad I did it, you see this?!" Copia cried. "Do you hear me, stronzo? I do not regret it! I am glad you are dead!" Under his outburst, he didn’t notice the groaning from the ground beneath him.

Inside, Terzo noticed Copia hadn't emerged from the kitchen in a while. "I will be back," he told his brothers, giving them both firm pats on the shoulders.

"Do not stray, Terzo," Secondo warned, worry laced in his tone. "You know how easy it is to get lost on the grounds in the fog."

"Feh. It was once, and I am no longer a child," Terzo replied, heading out into the afternoon. Primo watched after him with Secondo.

Outside, the youngest Emeritus traipsed through the gardens he knew so well, the gardens his eldest brother used to tend himself for leisure. Secondo was typically found throwing a lavish party while Primo wipe away his time amongst the flowers, while Terzo would be off, indulging in dark, imaginary worlds he had concocted in his head. His fascinations had often led him to the family cemetery. He came upon it, stopping. There was Copia, sitting by Father's grave. "What are you doing out here, all alone?"

"Unearthing memories," Copia sighed.

"Pleasant ones?" Terzo teased. "Of me, I assume." Copia didn't answer— only managed a weak smile. Terzo came over to sit beside him. He placed a hand on Copia's knee, and the former butler looked up at him. "I know you did it, Copia." Copia's eyes widened, but Terzo quickly put a finger to his own lips. "Ah, shh. I am glad you did. It is our little secret, si? You did us a favor. What none of us were brave enough to do. I would have helped, if you asked me." Copia swallowed, feeling a chill run through him.

"I..." Interrupting him, the faint sound of wheezing drifted through the air. "Do you hear that?" Copia hissed.

"Hm? Hear what?" It got louder. Wheezing turned into deep breaths taken in some sort of mechanical contraption _... like an oxygen tank._

A loud noise rang out. Both men turned to see a crack running up Nihil's headstone. Just as they were squinting to see how such a thing had happened, a hand burst from the ground between them. Both scrambled back, Copia falling onto his haunches. Terzo shielded him with an arm, watching in horror as his father pulled his body out of the soil. He was awful. Rotting flesh peeled off eroded brown bones, moss and grass and dirt caked in the eyeholes. Wisps of white hair stuck to the skull, and a cream and gold bathrobe hung from the skeleton. A bony finger reached out.

 _"I want my cake, Seestor!"_ An otherworldly voice screeched, and Copia covered his ears.

"Run!" Terzo shouted. Copia got up, but stopped for the youngest brother. "Go!" Terzo told him, “I will be fine!” He picked up a stick in defence. Copia ran, and didn't look back. He ran back into the house breathless, where Primo and Secondo rose to see what was the matter.

The wall sconces all went out. The sun had since gone down, pitching them into darkness save for the pale light of the rising moon outside. "What is going on?" Secondo asked, eyes narrowing. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Where is Terzo?" Primo asked in worry.

"He..." Copia gasped out. "The grave... your f-father!"

"Our father?" Secondo's lips turned down into a scowl as he gripped Copia by the collar. "It was you, wasnt it? I should have known it was the rat. I thank you for doing the deed, but I do not take kindly to being deceived." Cutting him off, the back door banged. After a few seconds, nobody entered the living room. It wasn’t Terzo. Primo's voice came out steadily.

"What was it you were saying about our father?"

Copia swallowed. "He has risen from beyond the grave."

The kitchen door slammed open, and there Nihil Emeritus stood in his ghastly, zombified state, a wicked laugh coming from deep within his bones. He held out a platter with something on it, and as he lumbered toward them, dragging his oxygen tank behind, the three men saw what it was. There, on the plate, was Terzo's severed head, five candles sticking from the top of it. As the brothers recoiled and Copia felt his knees buckle, Nihil took a deep breath from his mask.

_"It's my birthday, Seestor. And I got my cake."_

**Author's Note:**

> Hm. This cake doesn't taste very good. Sorry, Papa-- a little too much body, not enough blood. 
> 
> Remember to check under your beds tonight for ghosts, and if you hear an oxygen mask, well... best to leave some Werther's under your pillow as an offering. Huahaha!!


End file.
